A recent government-commissioned report predicts that students graduating now could have anything from eight to ten jobs in their lifetime. And these jobs will probably run across at least five different career paths. It's no longer a certainty that an apprentice will work 'man and boy' with the same firm until it's time to collect the mandatory gold secateurs and gardening gloves before disappearing into the twilight.

Today's students can look forward to working much harder to keeping a foot on the career ladder; and it's almost certain that they will not be able to stay on the same rung for more than 10 years at a time.

Included in the selection of new roles our future graduates will be able to apply for, for example, is a body-part maker, a space pilot, or an insect-based food developer. These future career opportunities might be on offer thanks to the advances still underway in science and technology, the growth in space tourism and the challenge of feeding the population.

Other vocations advertised in the future might include a personal brander, old-age wellness manager, memory augmentation surgeon, weather modification police officer and vertical farmer. A position I am looking forward to advertising for to assist me in my golden years is not a home help, but a virtual clutter organiser.

It is going to be a long time - well, at least 20 years - until my retirement and until any of these positions are advertised, never mind filled. But there has definitely been a change in how and where we work compared to 20 years ago.

Home working, remote working and, what was once referred to as hot desking, is now part of many of our working lives. Indeed, 15 percent of the EU workforce can be described as "mobile workers" (spending more than 10 working hours per week away from home and their main place of work), and 4 percent as mobile teleworkers. Virtual meetings - using modern technology to conduct a meeting instead of travelling to a location to meet up face-to-face (eg audio or video conferencing) - are also commonplace.

And now, with Microsoft Office Word 2010, you can access your information from anywhere you choose to work.

Even if you are not considering a move to the home office, you can still use Word 2010 to get things done when and where you need to from the web or even via your smartphone. If you have to meet that deadline, or address a work emergency, you don't need to be at your desk to do it.

Microsoft Word Web App is an online companion to Microsoft Word 2010. The App allows you to extend your Word experience to the browser, where you can see a high-fidelity version of any documents and edit if required. You are able to access some of the same formatting and editing tools used in Word 2010, and you can work in a familiar editing environment, from almost any computer with a Web browser.

And Microsoft Word Mobile 2010 gives you a lightweight editor for your documents that's especially designed for easy use on your Windows phone. So, when you need to finish an urgent report, or work on a shared document, Word 2010 makes it easier to get what you need done more quickly, with more flexibility and with better results.

The Web App is just one of many online and remote tools available in Word. For example, there are also new tools with enhanced co-authoring capabilities, meaning you can now edit the same document, at the same time, as other team members in other locations. You can even communicate instantly as you work, directly from Word.

If you feel inspired to make the move out of your office, then why not find out more about Word 2010? It's definitely going to be a thing of the future.